A SEVRES TWO-HANDLED TRAY (PLATEAU 'COURTEILLE')

The plateau 'Courteille' is first recorded in two sizes in the archives in 1758, and déjeuners 'Courteille', trays with accompanying teawares, were purchased by Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour in December of the same year. The model was still in production in the 1780s. There are five variations of the shape, and those without handles and rounded corners were often intended to be mounted in small two-tier tables and were called plateaux 'de chiffonière'. For an example of a tray of the same form as the present lot see Linda H. Roth and Claire Le Corbeiller, French Eighteenth-Century Porcelain at the Wadsworth Atheneum: The J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, Wadsworth, 2000, pp. 175-178, no. 83.